Profits fall at ASML clouds outlook

LONDON – ASML Holding NV, the leading developer of lithography equipment, saw profits and sales fall on an annual basis but nonetheless gave an upbeat outlook for the remainder of the year.

ASML (Veldhoven, The Netherlands) announced a net profit of 282.0 million euro (about $370 million) on sales revenue of 1,252 million euro (about $1.64 billion) in the first quarter of 2012. The revenue in 1Q12 compared with 1Q11 was down by 13.8 percent while the net profit fell by 28.6 percent.

Compared with the fourth quarter of 2011, AMSL revenue was up marginally from 1,211 billion euro. However, the net profit was marginally down from 285 million.

AMSL said that the 1Q11 results were in line with expectations and that they confirm that the company is on track to achieve 2.4 billion euro (about $3.1 billion) in the first half of 2012 and that it expects Q3 to continue at the same run rate.

Demand for equipment for logic chip production is currently driving sales, said Eric Meurice, president and CEO of AMSL, in statement.

"The sales trend is driven mainly by demand from foundries and Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), which will represent the majority of our sales in the next two quarters. The demand for 28 nanometer from this logic segment continues to be large and structural; it will be accompanied by the start of pre-production capacity for 20-nm. Later in the year, we expect to see technology demand for sub-20 nm NAND memory and sub-30 nm DRAM memory. Our sales will come mainly from Twinscan NXT:1950i immersion technology and will be complemented by a sustained KrF capacity build in logic as the new nodes require the capacity build-up of the full range of layers."

Meurice said that the company continues to work on the throughput of its EUV lithography equipment towards an objective of 60 wafers per hour in the second half of 2012. "We are preparing the shipments of the first 11 production systems on order, the NXE:3300B, from Q4 2012 to the summer of 2013. These units will serve our customers in their production recipe development. We have now started the negotiation of a new batch of orders for EUV systems, targeted mainly for customer production ramps," Meurice said.